Senate Recap for Sept. 23

New director of diversity and inclusion and assistant director of programming appointed

Matthew Little was appointed to the new office of director of diversity and inclusion. A senior majoring in gender and race relations, Little’s nomination by ASUN President Caden Fabbi was approved unanimously.

Dana Markavage, a senior majoring in psychology, was nominated to the office of assistant director of programming by programming director Tazia Statucki. Markavage, who would oversee the programming budget, was also approved unanimously. The senate had no questions for the nominee.

RESIGNATIONS

Letters of resignation read for Sen. Ramirez and Sen. Cuevas

Speaker Nick Andrew read the resignation letters of College of Engineering Sen. Anthony Ramirez and Division of Health Sciences Sen. Amanda Cuevas. The reading marks the official end to each of their tenures as senators and their seats will remain open for the next two weeks.

In her letter, Sen. Cuevas apologized for her departure and noted that she was leaving due to time constraints.

In his letter, Sen. Ramirez apologized to his constituents, saying that he had both lost the time necessary to be a senator as well as his passion to do the job. Moreover, Sen. Ramirez had been on the verge of being officially censured by the senate but resigned before any official action was taken.

PUBLIC COMMENT

Sen. Green makes case for censure of Sen. Ramirez

Just before the meeting adjourned, Sen. Green of the College of Education expressed discontent at the fact that the former Sen. Ramirez was not censured.

“I believe that before we accept his resignation, he should be required to be censured,” Green said. “I think it devalues the position if an individual could rack up points and just leave.”

By the time of his departure, Sen. Ramirez had acquired 5.33 censure points from missing various meetings and office hours, making him the only senator eligible for censure.

In response, both Speaker Andrew and Attorney General Ryan Hood noted that officially censuring Sen. Ramirez would incur an amount of paperwork that, at this point in time, would be wholly unnecessary.

Jacob Solis can be reached at jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @TheSagebrush.